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Expertise amiss: interactivity fosters learning but expert tutors are less interactive than novice tutors

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Abstract

The extent to which tutors are interactive and engage in dialogue with a student tends to depend on their pedagogical expertise. Normally, tutors with pedagogical expertise are more interactive than tutors without pedagogical expertise. This finding, however, has largely been obtained when examining tutoring in procedural domains such as mathematics. Hence, less is known about the extent to which tutors engage in interactivity as a function of their pedagogical expertise when they tutor a conceptual domain such as biology. Therefore, we conducted a study with N = 46 tutors who differed in their pedagogical expertise and examined their interactive style of tutoring in a conceptual domain (Herppich et al. 2013, 2014). This article presents results of a content-based analysis showing that a tutor’s interactivity resulting from combining more scaffolding with less explaining particularly promoted a student’s deep learning. Contrary to prior research, however, tutors with more pedagogical expertise were less interactive and, consequently, fostered learning to a lesser degree than tutors with less pedagogical expertise. Our findings suggest that a more complete understanding of interactivity in tutoring requires a differentiated approach considering interactivity as a multifaceted phenomenon.

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Notes

  1. Figure 1a, c also displays the total effect of a tutor’s expertise on a student’s concept learning that was reported in Herppich et al. (2014). Coefficients deviate marginally from those reported earlier. This is because in Herppich et al. (2014), one tutor–student dyad did not yield codes for the analyses performed there and, thus, had to be excluded from the analysis. For the analyses presented in this article, all dyads yielded codes and, accordingly, could be included. The total effect of the type of tutor on a student’s concept learning was significant, R 2 = .09, F(1,44) = 4.26, p = .04, 95 % CIB [.01, .28], f = .31 (medium effect). The total effect of the type of tutor on a student’ mental model learning (Fig. 1b, d), yet, was not significant, R 2 < .01, F(1,44) < .01, p = .96, CIB [−.16, .18], f = .01 (small effect).

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Acknowledgments

Analyses in this article are based on data collected but not reported in Herppich et al. (2013, 2014). This research was supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (WI 3348/2-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Science, University of Freiburg, Rempartstr. 11, 79098, Freiburg, Germany

    Stephanie Herppich, Jörg Wittwer & Matthias Nückles

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Engelbergerstr. 41, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Alexander Renkl

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  1. Stephanie Herppich
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  2. Jörg Wittwer
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Correspondence to Stephanie Herppich.

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Herppich, S., Wittwer, J., Nückles, M. et al. Expertise amiss: interactivity fosters learning but expert tutors are less interactive than novice tutors. Instr Sci 44, 205–219 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-015-9363-8

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